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I’m a climate scientist. Trump’s U.N. address is a fire hose of misinformation
(www.sfchronicle.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2025
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Environmental degradation is very real, the Earth is not bigger than the problems we cause. In a lot of ways I think focusing so much on climate change has forced issues like water and air pollution to take back stage. Everyone seems fine with destroying our environment while either paying lip service to climate change or denying it exists.
I'm internally crying and screaming and raging. I am so fucking scared. And no one even notices.
https://old.lemmy.world/comment/19616135
I am so sorry. This was predicted by Silent Spring. It seemed so far fetched at the time, but decades of overuse of pesticide have probably lead us to this.
It does start to make sense why all the oligarchs are so concerned about immigrants. They probably know what is coming.
Silent Spring annoys me, but her heart was in the right place, as was her science. But if the Western world had used our money and influence to press the attack with DDT, for just one more decade, we could have wiped out malaria. Just as we did in the United States.
Once we wiped it out? Typical America, "not my problem". So we said, "Use DDT all you want, but the most powerful nation on Earth won't trade with you any longer." That's a ban in all but name.
Fuck me. Just 10 more years and we could have saved tens of millions of lives. But they were brown people, whatever.
And I'll say that at the same time as stating that we should ban all pesticides and herbicides for non-professional use, and tighten the grip like hell on farms and professionals.
Worked the outside lawn and garden at Lowe's. Had a coworker tell me, "If it's for killing, it's inside. If it's for growing, it's outside." I saw us sell tons of it into urban lawns. And that doesn't count professional killers. Recommended some poison to a guy one day, "What do you use?" "I don't use any chemicals excepting fire ant bait (hydramethylnon!) because they're invasive and destructive." Man looked at me like I was crazy. "You don't kill anything?" "Ya got me, I also trap carpenter bees, destructive little fuckers, but that's it."
DDT causes lots of other issues. Saving humans well destroying the ecosystem seems kind of pointless.
I never knew about the malaria thing, pretty grim when you consider how much human suffering it causes.
I agree that fertilizers and pesticides should be restricted to professionals and tightly controlled. Blanket spraying of fields, for instance, where less than 1% of the herbicide or insecticide gets to its intended target would be banned outright.
I appreciate your stance on protecting life even of it is sometimes inconvenient.
We on the same page. Wish to god we could somehow band together in our common cause. I have no idea how to even find people like us, no idea how to fight.
How do we convince people that buying up pallets of herbicides and pesticides are to be banned? How do we show people that their perfect lawns are deserts? How do we start work on a population that has worse science education than I got in elementary school 70s? And half of them didn't get it?!
I want to scream. But how to convince people that say, "Well! Bugs aren't so bad this year!" Yeah, except for the fire ants in places I've never seen them. They're thriving.
I do not know what to do. Probably be moving to the Philippines to take my wife home. Lot's of reason's that's a bad move ATM, but at least life still thrives there, a sort of human "base camp". Fuck me, if things truly went south around here, there would be about a week worth of squirrels in the woods, and then we'd be starving.
It is hard to organize an environmental movement because it has all been turned into politics. It seems everything has become political including health care now. I am beside myself just like you.
There are some existing movements like Garden for Wildlife though.
https://content.gardenforwildlife.com/certified-wildlife-habitats
Good luck and I think getting out wouldn't be a bad idea. I took my family to Alaska already because leaving isn't an option for us. At least I know we could survive here if we had to.